My aunty’s appearance had changed so much. Her flesh had grown too smooth and thick and some traceries lined her plump neck as a folded flesh sat beneath
her lower jaw. She
looked gorgeous in her attire, a shiny
goggle on her face. She
was almost forgetting the sign language.
“Where is my sister?” she signed slowly
to me. “I was having
bad dreams about her.”
“It is a long story,” I said as tears took
over my eyes. She was
stunned when I finished narrating the
story to her.
Without any further ado, we set out for
the court, myself, Mrs
Oyindamola, Mrs Omotayo and my aunty.
I wished Moses
was with us, but it was an emergency. We
met a Justice there
and he telephoned the actual Justice we
were looking for—the
one who judged the case that day. He
promised he would be
with us in few minutes, but it took
eternity before he showed
up. He didn’t even apologize. My aunty
and my class-teacher
presented the matter and the Judge was
surprised.
“She should have been released since last
year!” the man said
and my aunty signed it to me. She still
remembered to be kind
as usual. Back in those days, she would
always sign every
voice language to me as they come. She
wouldn’t even wait for
us to get home before doing that.
“Do you mean that that woman in
question released her
mother for a moment and sent her back
there?” the Judge said,
pointing at me.
“Yes sir,” Mrs Oyindamola replied.
“That is not possible!” the man said
harshly.
“Toyosi did!”
“Evidence!” the judge asked. My aunty
asked me to present the
long note addressed to me three years
back by Toyosi and I
did. It was the note into which Toyosi
wrote the exact place she
took my mother to after the Abuja trip.
The judge read it and
was stunned.
“I am very busy today—and…it’s late
already,” he said. “I will
go with you to the prison tomorrow to
confirm this.”
The crossover to the next day seemed like
eternity—my eyes
were wide open all through the night. My
aunty and her
husband had to put up with our neighbor,
Mrs Eunice who was
very accommodating, while Mrs. Oyin
stayed with us again. I
thought I was the only one who couldn’t
sleep until I saw Mrs
Oyindamola sitting down on her bed and
clicking the floor with
her toes. I knew my aunty would be
feeling same way too.
I had a nightmare, just when sleep
knocked me off my
consciousness. The dream was indeed
terrible—my mother
was having the noose on her neck and
was going to be
hanged. It appeared as if she was
swapped for an inmate who
had a ‘death by hanging’ sentence. I woke
up and screamed.
Everyone rushed into my room—even
those in the other
apartment rushed in.
“What is the matter, Rose?” they kept
asking me. I was too
shocked to speak. When I spoke
eventually, my aunty began to
bind and loose. She was still on her high
spirituality.
“Rose, I have cancelled the dream, just
go back to bed,” she
told me confidently and smiled.
Moses joined us the next day, but Mrs.
Omotayo had to get
back to her workplace. My aunty had
rained showers of praises
and prayers upon her for taking good
care of me. She also
confessed that she didn’t have rest of
mind since a month and
half ago when she started to think of her
sister—my mother.
She said she had sent some letters in the
past, putting her
home address abroad there so that we
could reply the letter
and indeed she got replies for them all.
While we were in the
car, going to the court just now, my
aunty showed us one of
the letters of reply she got from my
mother:
Dear Rachael,
I got your letter. Did you see the one I
sent to you earlier? As I
said before, we are all fine here. Rose is
doing very fine right
now and she is now a very big girl. She
received scholarships
and double promotion and John is now
happy with us. As I
speak, I am in Abuja with John and Rose.
He will send Rose
abroad soon to continue her education.
That woman, Toyosi,
has finally returned to her husband after
setting me free from
the prison. In case you come to Nigeria at
any time, don’t check
us in that house anymore because we
have packed
permanently to Abuja. I will forward the
address to you later.
Take good care of yourself my sweet
sister.
Your Sister,
Hannah.
I was shocked. So, Toyosi had been
sending false letters to my
aunty all the while. I compared the letter
with the handwritings
in the notes she gave to me and there
was no difference. She is
indeed a criminal, I thought.
“But here, she said that we have
relocated, so why did you still
check us here, or did you first go to
Abuja?” I asked her.
“We have no choice than to come here
first because she didn’t
send the address of the purported Abuja
residence.”
Soon, we got to the court. Moses took
pleasure in
communicating with the Judge and the
choleric man began to
pick interest in us. The day before, he
was frowning
throughout, but now he was brandishing
his teeth in deep
smiles. He loved the way Moses was
speaking intelligently as if
he was already a professional lawyer.
Truly, they were
speaking the language they both enjoyed
—the language of the
jury.
We set out for the prison where my
mother was detained and
to our shock she was not there. Is my
dream already a reality?
I thought. We were all afraid!
To be continued
